


if you look to the stars, oh, you could find -

by syncoping



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Character Development, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, Pre-Relationship, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Renegon (Mass Effect), like 90 percent of this is banter, snapshots of their relationship developing thru the three games and after, the other 10 percent is garrus respecting women
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25864318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syncoping/pseuds/syncoping
Summary: “We have to keep moving,” Garrus says. “Don’t let that thing get a bead on—” The end of his sentence is drowned out by a roar as the maw emerges from the soil, spraying dirt and pebbles over them. Spirits. Why is it so big?Shepard shoulders the launcher. “I’m gonna feed it a fucking grenade!”At this, Grunt looks positively giddy. Garrus’ working mandible twitches in consternation. A sniper is completely useless in an arena fight, but there’s nowhere in the galaxy he’d rather be than fighting by Shepard’s side. He says, “I’ll cover you both. Move!”-Five things Shepard gives Garrus, and one thing Garrus gives Shepard. (Naturally, most of them are guns.)
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 21
Kudos: 34





	1. banshee AR (2183)

**2183**

Garrus’ dad isn’t talking to him. That’s not so unusual. Their relationship follows predictable cycles: there are periods of strained civility, even cordiality, before Garrus does something his father doesn’t like. (Such as, for example, taking extended leave from C-Sec to join a human Spectre who’s hunting down _another_ Spectre who Garrus has been explicitly forbidden from continuing to investigate.) Then there are explosive arguments, followed by lectures, which typically involve quotations from long-dead writers, citations of the Vakarian family’s history dating back to the Unification War, exhaustive lists of Garrus’ past and present failings, dire predictions concerning his future, and at least one jab at his skill as a sniper. The lectures are always followed by radio silence. _Think about what you’ve done_ , that’s the idea. Garrus checks his omnitool again, mandibles twitching restlessly. No messages.

“Vakarian.”

In the past, his mother would probably have intervened by now. She’d been an elementary-school teacher back when she was still working; she’s good at smoothing over childish conflicts. And she’s always hated it when they fought. But his mom is – well. Not capable of that any more. So the role of family mediator has fallen to the person least suited for it: Solana, his eternally unimpressed older sister, who thinks that their dad is a dick, and that Garrus is a brat, and that both of them can fuck right off as far as she’s concerned.

“Vakarian!”

He starts. Looks around. Commander Shepard is staring at him, one eyebrow raised in a human expression he’s becoming increasingly familiar with. He feels himself flush beneath his armor; she’d told him to stand at the building’s entrance and keep watch for any husks they’d missed, not to daydream about his family problems. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Can you open this?” she asks. Delivers a light kick to the locker at her feet. He looks it over; his visor identifies the make, the date, the type of lock. It’s an old model, one that’s no match for the decryption programme he’d . . . _acquired_ on the Citadel.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and navigates to the module on his omnitool. The crack is already halfway complete before it occurs to him to wonder why exactly she wants the locker open. Probably looking for more information on what the survey team who lived in these prefabs had been working on, before being transformed into the crowd of husks that had rushed them at the nearby excavation site. The commander is nothing if not thorough. She searches everything and talks to everyone. She never holsters her shotgun until she’s given every downed enemy an extra shot to the head, just to make sure they’re really dead.

A tinny jingle plays as the lock releases and the door swings open. The commander nods at him, drops to a crouch to examine the locker’s contents. She makes a pleased sound. He watches, with mounting suspicion, as she removes an armful of weapons, places them on the nearby table: an assault rifle and a couple of pistols, all of which look as new and shiny as if they’ve never been used.

“Ah . . . Commander?” He is reminded, suddenly, of Shepard’s personal history, which he’d read about in the classified Alliance files he’d . . . _acquired_ during his investigation into Saren. Gang violence, drug running, _armed robbery._

“What?” She reaches back in, comes out with a mod kit. She checks the label. “Recoil dampener. Nice.”

“. . . can I ask what we’re going to do with those?”

She gives him a confused look. “Fire them. That’s what people usually do with guns.”

“Ma’am,” Garrus says, appalled. Commander Shepard picks up the assault rifle, looks it over. “We can’t just – _take_ things.”

“Can’t we?” She sounds bored.

“No! That’s _looting_ , Commander, it violates galactic law –”

“Relax, C-Sec.” She checks the slide action, locks it back into place. “I’m a Spectre. Above the law, right? Anyway, there’s nobody here to arrest us.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s not about the law, exactly. It’s just . . .” Her eyebrow is raised again. “Those weapons belonged to the survey team, ma'am. It would be wrong to steal them.”

“Right,” the commander says, thoughtfully. “I see what you mean.”

Garrus exhales with relief.

Shepard squints out of the window, towards the excavation site. “Maybe we should go ask the survey team if they’re okay with us taking their guns. Although I have to say, they didn’t seem eager to talk the first time around.”

Garrus opens his mouth, then closes it. The commander fixes him with a piercing stare. She is about average height for a human woman, which means that the top of her head barely comes up to Garrus' keel; she has to tilt her head up to glare at him. It's intimidating anyway. “Do you know how much the Council is paying me, Vakarian? How much I get to keep the ship running and pay the crew and keep everybody armed and in fighting shape?”

“I . . . no, Commander.”

“ _Not enough_.” She thrusts the rifle at him. It’s a Banshee, a more advanced model than the Avenger he’s been carrying around. After a moment, Garrus takes it, horrified at himself. “Seriously, Vakarian. If I’d known you were going to be such a boy scout. . .”

“A—a what?”

Tali’Zorah appears in the doorway. Her arms are full of metal and wires and unidentifiable bits of tech, no doubt . . . _acquired_ from elsewhere on the research team’s base. She looks at Garrus, and the commander, and the pile of stolen weapons. “Oh, a recoil dampener,” she says. “Nice.”

“Tali gets the recoil dampener,” says Commander Shepard, and tosses it at her. Tali catches it neatly on top of the pile of stripped tech. “Vakarian, a boy scout is another term for pain in the ass. Anyone ever called you _that_?”

“Yes ma’am." He straightens his shoulders. "Several people, actually.”

That gets a smirk out of her. She picks up one of the pistols, inspects it for wear and tear. “As long as you’re self-aware.”

Garrus looks down at the gun in his arms. He can already hear his dad’s lecture. _I raised you better than this. Do things by the book, Garrus, or don’t do them at all. Illegal actions can never be justified, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what you hope to accomplish by them. So if you don’t delete that decryption programme from your omnitool—_

It really is a much better model than his Avenger, which had overheated twice while they were being swarmed by husks. Garrus checks the sights; they’re perfectly aligned, no drift. Actually, he’s inclined to think this rifle will do just fine.


	2. new armor

**2185**

They’ve fought thresher maws before, of course. Garrus remembers struggling to keep his footing in the Mako’s cramped turret as Shepard spun the wheel wildly, trying to fire the cannon down a maw’s throat. But there’s no Mako to protect them this time. The two of them dive for cover as the maw’s acid arcs towards them; it hits the other side of the pillar with a sizzling sound. A splash of it narrowly misses him and eats into the concrete just beside his leg.

Grunt hasn’t bothered finding cover. Over the maw’s roar, Garrus can just barely hear him roaring back: “I! AM! KROGAAAN!” As if anyone could mistake him for anything else. Beside him, Shepard holsters her shotgun; she’s not going to get within range to use it. Even she isn’t crazy enough to biotically charge a thresher maw. Probably.

“Any ideas?” he asks grimly.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Shepard shouts back. Which isn’t particularly encouraging. Garrus hears the crash as the thresher maw dives back beneath the sand. He and Shepard emerge from behind the pillar, into the cloud of reddish dust.

“A thresher maw!” Grunt has his arms raised above his head in excitement. “The beating heart of Tuchanka! Even _surviving_ a maw attack is an honour few have ever attained!”

“We know,” says Shepard, taking the grenade launcher off her back.

“We know,” says Garrus, switching his Incisor for his assault rifle. The maw’s not going to give him time to line up a shot; quantity over quality is probably the way to go. He’d _told_ Shepard that bringing a sniper to an arena fight was a bad idea, strategically speaking, but she’d insisted. Something about Grunt looking up to him, which made no sense, since Grunt was the only person on the Normandy _taller_ than him.

Grunt slams his massive fists together joyously. “Urdnot Wrex was the last to kill a maw during his Rite. _I will be the next_!”

“We have to keep moving,” Garrus says. “Don’t let that thing get a bead on—” The end of his sentence is drowned out by a roar as the maw emerges from the soil, spraying dirt and pebbles over them. Spirits. Why is it so big?

Shepard shoulders the launcher. “ _I’m gonna feed it a fucking grenade!_ ”

At this, Grunt looks positively giddy. Garrus’ working mandible twitches in consternation. A sniper is completely _useless_ in an arena fight, but there’s nowhere in the galaxy he’d rather be than fighting by Shepard’s side. He says, “I’ll cover you both. Move!”

-

Several hours later, he can still smell the rancid, sour stink of the maw’s acid. It lingers through the shower he takes immediately upon returning to the _Normandy_ , and also through the second shower he takes immediately after the first one. It is entirely possible he will never be free of it. His armor certainly never will be. In the main battery, Garrus looks over his ruined chestplate grimly. He supposes he should be glad none of the acid made it through his underarmor and onto him.

 _I fought a thresher maw on foot._ There’s another story his sister won’t believe. _I fought a thresher maw on foot to help get a two-month-old tank-bred krogan supersoldier through puberty._ Yeah, probably better if he doesn’t bring this up to Solana at all. He should really stop telling her anything about their missions – the less anyone knows, the better – but it’s hard not to, especially when she keeps asking. He can never quite bring himself to say _I miss you, Sol,_ but that doesn’t make it any less true.

He’s taking his Vindicator apart to clean it when the door unlocks and opens behind him. Garrus doesn’t bother looking around – only two people on the ship have the authority to override the battery door when he locks it, and it’s not like Operative Lawson is in the habit of visiting him. Footsteps cross the room. Onto the crate that serves as his workbench are placed the sad, acid-eaten remains of what had once been a perfectly serviceable M-100 Grenade Launcher.

“Can you calibrate this?” Shepard enquires.

Garrus pushes the twisted metal away from his work surface. “You’d be better off asking Lawson. I’ve heard she has experience bringing things back from the dead.”

“ _Oh_ , an undead joke. It’s funny because I got spaced, right? Classy.” But she’s smiling. A suicide mission helps you find the humor in everything, including your own mortality. “Damn shame. I loved that grenade launcher.”

Garrus had loved the grenade launcher too, briefly, since it had been more or less the only thing standing between him and death by thresher maw spit. “We’ll get you a new one next time we’re on the Citadel.”

“Fuck that.” In the dim light of the battery, the little red lights in her eyes glow. It would be insensitive to say it – corneal degeneration can’t be fun, even if your eyes run on cybernetics – but he thinks it suits her. “Next time we go shopping, I want a _Cain_.”

Garrus sighs. It’s not that he doesn’t have a healthy respect for weapons of mass destruction, but mushroom clouds are all substance, no style. “I’m sure Grunt will approve, battlemaster.”

Her grin widens. Then she spots his armor, and gives a low whistle. “Damn, Garrus.” She picks up his chestplate, gingerly. Sticks a finger through one of the smaller holes and wiggles it at him. “You can’t wear this again.”

“I know,” Garrus says, unable to keep a bit of heaviness from working its way into his subvocals. Stupid, to be sentimental about something like that. But that armor had kept him alive through countless firefights on Omega. It had survived his whole team. He had at times been inclined to believe it would survive him.

“Just checking.” Her voice is light. She puts his chestplate down, picks up one of his half-melted pauldrons. “Since you seem to enjoy running around in armor that’s falling apart.”

He squirms. It’s not the first time she’s brought up the fact that his armor’s integrity hasn’t been complete since that last hellish firefight at his old base. The rocket that had taken half his face out had also scorched gashes into his gorget. He should have replaced it earlier, but - “I’ll figure something out, Shepard.”

She shakes her head. Her hair is wet; clearly he wasn’t the only one who’d spent a good deal of time in the shower after coming back from Tuchanka. “I’ll make that asshole pay for it.”

He doesn’t have to ask who _that asshole_ is. “I’m not sure this particular, uh, diversion was essential to the mission.”

“Of course it was. If we hadn’t put Grunt through the Rite, he’d have torn the ship apart. No ship, no mission.” She tosses his pauldron back down. “So Cerberus pays for your armor.”

Shepard loves making Cerberus pay for things. Like the ML-77 Missile Launcher she hasn’t even taken out of the armory once. Or the horrible little rodent which runs on a wheel in her cabin and bit Garrus on the finger when he tried to pet it. “No objections here, Commander.”

She nods. “Send me the name of the model. I’ll tell Chambers to place a requisition order for a new set.”

“A new set _in blue_ , Shepard.”

“Of course. I hope the paint job costs extra.” She runs a hand through her hair. Water droplets cling to her fingers. “I guess you’ll have to come to Grunt’s party in civvies, though.”

“Uh.” Before they’d boarded the shuttle, Wrex had told them there’d be a feast that night to celebrate Grunt’s initiation into Clan Urdnot. Apparently, thresher maw poison glands were considered a culinary delicacy. “I . . . wasn’t planning to . . .”

She glares at him. “Yeah?”

“I just mean,” Garrus says smoothly, “I don’t think Clan Urdnot would appreciate having a turian guest. I’d just be a reminder of how the Rebellions failed. Probably better for everyone if I just –”

Shepard puts a hand on her hip. “You’re Grunt’s krantt, Garrus. He wants you there.”

“He _wants_ to tear my mandibles off, Shepard.”

“Oh, come on. You know he doesn’t mean that.”

“He got Jack to teach him how to use the intercom _just_ so he could tell me about how he wants to tear my mandibles off _and sharpen them into throwing knives._ ”

“He’s such a resourceful kid,” Shepard says affectionately. “Anyway. I’ll meet you in the shuttle bay at nineteen hundred hours standard. Because _you’re coming with me_.”

“. . .”

“That’s an order, Vakarian. You do remember what those are?”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

“ _Battlemaster_.”

She scowls. “You know, it’s not as cute when you say it.”

“You think it’s cute when Grunt says it?”

“It’s _adorable_ when Grunt says it.” She picks up the ruined grenade launcher. “I’ll take this to Tali. She might be able to salvage something. And don’t worry, Garrus. I’ll protect your mandibles.”

“What,” Garrus says, but the door is already sliding shut behind her. The main battery always seems oddly empty after Shepard leaves.

Things feel very empty in general when Shepard’s not around.

Not that he – it’s not like he – no. That would be ridiculous. Garrus goes back to dismantling his Vindicator. If he’s got to attend a krogan celebration with no armor on, he’ll at least have to make sure his weapons are in working order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so long bc i was going to write a whole tuchanka shenanigans thing .... but then i got lazy


	3. a drink

**2185**

After the suicide mission, of course, comes the suicide party. Garrus isn’t fond of parties as a general rule – he’s never quite at ease in large groups of people, even people he’s blown up a Collector base with—but he can appreciate the burning desire everybody on the _Normandy_ currently feels for post-traumatic alcohol. That had been his and Shepard’s plan, actually, directly after their return through the Omega-4 relay: go up to her cabin, get spectacularly drunk, have victory sex, and then pass out and sleep for an entire cycle. In the end they’d only managed the going up to her cabin and passing out parts. The drinking and victory sex had had to come later.

There had been a lot of it, though. He’s spent the past few days mostly in and around Shepard’s bed. In and around _Shepard_ , really. It’s been a really good few days.

They’d docked temporarily at Omega so that Gardner could restock the bar. Kasumi’s bed has been temporarily moved out of Port Observation so that more people can cram themselves into the room. Even Miranda is here, with a neck brace and mottled bruises marring her unnaturally symmetrical face, talking to Mordin with the most sincere smile he’s ever seen her wear. Jacob and Grunt are having an animated discussion about action movies. Zaeed appears to be chatting up both Samara and Kelly Chambers simultaneously; neither of them look very happy about it. Donnelly is wearing some kind of skirt. Jack is wearing even less clothing than she usually does. The horrible rodent is wearing the top of a paper umbrella as a hat and is sitting on Shepard’s shoulder, gorging itself on seeds.

Over the pulsing music, Tali shouts: “And my SUIT was ON FIRE!”

“I know,” Garrus says, patting her soothingly on the helmet. “You keep telling me.”

“It was ON FIRE, Garrus! Keelah, even Haestrom wasn’t as hot as that ventilation shaft. I’ve never had to burn while hacking before! I mean, hack while burning! I mean. . .”

“Garrus Vakarian,” Legion says, on his other side, “we believe Tali’Zorah-Creator’s blood alcohol levels exceed normal parameters. Continued consumption is not advisable.”

“It’s okay,” he tells it. That’s a new one: reassuring a geth. “I’ve seen her drink this much before. She’ll pass out soon.”

Legion tilts its flashlight-head. “We do not understand. Organics consider unconsciousness a desirable outcome?”

“Sure, if it stops her giving herself alcohol poisoning.” Tali is already starting to sag against him. On the other side of the room, Shepard catches his eye; she jerks her head towards the door. Garrus gently leans Tali against the armrest of the couch. “Legion. Keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t try any of the levo punch, okay?”

Its head tilts the other way. “Order received.”

Okay. Garrus makes his way through the chattering press of bodies, follows Shepard out into the corridor. It’s several degrees cooler out there. Shepard has a cigarette in the corner of her mouth; smoke twists around her face like ribbons. She’d never smoked on the old Normandy; it was against Alliance regulations. Cerberus doesn’t care to enforce the same restrictions.

“Where’s your rat?” he asks her.

She gives him a dirty look. “The _space hamster_ is with Thane,” she says. “He said he wanted to observe it and meditate on the simple innocence of the animal mind.”

“Meditate? In _there_?”

“You didn't see him dancing earlier? He's hammered, Garrus.” She grins at him in a way that suggests she’s not entirely sober either. Well, fair enough, neither is he. She catches his arm, drags him into the mess, where she keys a code into the pantry cupboard.

“I didn’t want to bring this into the observation room,” she says, as the cupboard opens. She reaches up, rifles through its contents. “Because the label said it wasn’t safe for quarians, and you know what Tali does when she has too many shots.”

“More shots?”

"Exactly."

Garrus leans against the counter and quietly admires what standing on her toes is doing to Shepard’s legs. There had been a time when he’d considered human legs slightly painful to look at; they seemed to bend in entirely the wrong way. It’s only recently that he’s developed an appreciation of them. “What are you looking for?”

“This.” Shepard slides a slender, opaque glass bottle from between two plastic containers. “I picked it up when I went to buy supplies with Gardner. I . . . thought you might like it.”

She hands him the bottle. Garrus glances at the label; his eyes widen. “Spirits. Where did you _find_ this?”

“At the liquor store near Afterlife?” She jerks her chin at the bottle. “That’s the Invictus colony flag on the label, I think. You said your mother’s family is from there, right?”

He looks at her, startled. He doesn’t even remember telling her that, but Shepard has a tendency to listen more closely than she lets on. “They are.” Not that he’d ever visited; Invictus wasn’t the sort of place you took your kids on holiday. “This is Invictan horosk, Shepard, it’s their biggest export. Their only export, really. It’s pretty much the fanciest drink there is.”

Shepard drags on her cigarette. Watching her smoke is oddly hypnotic; there’s a rhythm to it. “So . . . what, the turian equivalent of Serrice Ice Brandy?”

“I don’t know what that is, but yeah.” He sets it down on the counter, slightly reverently. “Thanks, Shepard. My grandmother kept a bottle of this on display in her house. I _always_ wanted to know what it tasted like.”

Shepard laughs her rare laugh. “Consider it repayment. After all, you _did_ bring me that bottle of wine.”

He preens a little. “What would interspecies romance be without alcohol?”

And he doesn’t even realise what he’s said until Shepard murmurs, “Didn’t realise this was a _romance_ , Vakarian.”

There’s a line, he knows, where blowing off steam ends and something else begins; it had been clear at first, but he’s spent enough time in her arms that it’s begun to blur. Which is on _him_ , and his – his feelings. He’s Shepard’s best friend, who she _happens_ to have spent the past week fucking in every position depicted in Mordin’s safe turian/human sex guide, butTtat’s all. Garrus stammers something, feeling heat rise up his neck, but Shepard only puts her cigarette out against the counter, looks him dead in the eye. “Well? _Is_ it?”

“Uh –” He always seems to lose the power of speech when she looks at him like that. “Shepard, I . . .”

She scowls. “Damn it, Garrus. Why can’t you just say what you mean?”

He stares at her, baffled. It clicks, in some distant part of his brain, that Shepard can’t hear or understand most of his involuntary subvocal inflections; one of the difficulties of serving on a human ship is having to spell out things other turians would pick up just from undertones and harmonics. She doesn’t realise it, but he’s _been_ telling her what he wants; what he’s wanted (if he’s honest with himself) for a long time, since that day back in ’83 when it had first dawned on him that his feelings for his commander went somewhat beyond respect and admiration. Back then, he’d simply buried the realization, refused to allow himself to think about it any further. _Now—_

“I just . . . I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Shepard. I don’t want to – to ask you for more than you want to –” _Finish your sentences, Vakarian_! “I – what I’m trying to say is --”

“Idiot,” Shepard says. Her hand cups the injured side of his face; he presses against it, seeking warmth. “I know. Me too.”

Then he doesn’t have to talk any more, because she’s kissing him. Shepard doesn’t have mandibles to rub against his, so she uses her fingers. He doesn’t have lips like she does, but he can open his mouth to let her tongue in. She tastes heady and bitter, like whatever she’s been drinking; his mandibles flutter wildly under her touch. Humans are small and light, relative to him, anyway, and lifting her off her feet is easy. Her knees hook over the spikes of his hips, her thighs squeeze his waist, sending a shiver through him-

“Holy shit. _What_?”

Garrus nearly drops her. She twists in his arms, looking furious. In the corridor, Joker stares, open-mouthed.

“ _Joker_ ,” Shepard snarls, in a voice that could cut steel.

“No, I’m going.” He’s still on crutches, after wrecking both his legs crawling through the ducts. “I’m going as fast as I can. I know that’s pretty slow, but –”

“Shepard can we _please_ just go to your cabin,” Garrus whispers.

“—and it’s cool, really! I’m not, you know, some kind of Earth First keep-humanity-pure type. I mean, this wasn’t even the weirdest thing I’ve seen all night. Thane is doing some _crazy_ religious shit with your hamster in there. So you guys just, uh, do you, and I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything. Fuck, I just wanted to take a piss, I didn’t . . .” The bathroom door slides open. “. . . some Fornax shit . . .” The door slides closed.

Shepard and Garrus look at each other. From the Port Observation room comes the sound of something expensive breaking, followed by cheers.

“My cabin,” Shepard says. “Now.” She reaches behind her, grabs the bottle of horosk. “And you have to carry me all the way there.”

It's possible that Garrus has never obeyed an order faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my head they start uhhh relieving tension together like a month before the omega 4 relay bc having potentially dangerous sex for the first time right before a suicide mission is ... a bad idea. anyway this is the halfway point and all i have so far. rest should be done soon :)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from between the breaths by mitski/xiu xiu. which is an amazing song and also gives me vibes of this pairing? but only bc im obsessed with these stupid video games and i have to exorcise myself by writing about them.


End file.
